Power Assist Wear Driven with Pneumatic Rubber Artificial Muscles

In the coming advanced age society, an innovative technology to assist the activities of daily living of elderly and disabled people and the heavy work in nursing is desired. To develop such a technology, an actuator safe and friendly for human is required. It should be small, lightweight and has to provide a proper softness. A pneumatic rubber artificial muscle is available as such actuators. We have developed some types of pneumatic rubber artificial muscles and applied them to wearable power assist devices. A wearable power assist device is equipped to the human body to assist the muscular force, which supports activities of daily living, rehabilitation, heavy working, training and so on. In this paper, some types of pneumatic rubber artificial muscles developed in our laboratory are introduced. Further, two kinds of wearable power assist devices driven with the rubber artificial muscles are described. Some evaluations can clarify the effectiveness of pneumatic rubber artificial muscle for such an innovative human assist technology.